


Trying to Stay Alive

by Eigon



Category: Spies of Warsaw (TV)
Genre: F/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eigon/pseuds/Eigon
Summary: Spies of Warsaw ended at the beginning of the Second World War, and the last line was Jean-Francois saying that now they must try to stay alive.  Here's an idea of how they might have managed it.
Relationships: Jean-Francois Mercier/Anna Mercier
Kudos: 2





	Trying to Stay Alive

In May, 1940, the Germans invaded France through the Ardennes, just as Jean-Francois had said they would. A new word entered the common consciousness – Blitzkrieg, the lightning war.   
It was very different from his experiences of the Great War. There was no place in this war for the cavalry charges that Jean-Francois had been involved in, alongside his Polish friend Pakulski. This war was all about tanks, and aircraft, and swift advances, and France was not prepared for it.  
There was heavy fighting, but the tanks entered Paris unopposed in June – the French government had already fled.  
And then Petain, the new head of government, decided to sue for peace with Hitler.  
"We've got to get to London," Jean-Francois said. "Did you hear de Gaulle's speech on the BBC?"  
Anna nodded. "It's obvious we can't stay here. An armistice with the Germans – is Petain mad?"  
"Petain still thinks he can negotiate with Nazis," Jean-Francois said. "I can't serve such a government. We need to be with de Gaulle."  
"What about your sister?" Anna asked.  
"Keeping her head down in Paris – she doesn't want to leave. She can always go with Armand to the estate if she has to."  
Anna nodded, and continued to pack. There wasn't much to do. They had hardly managed to unpack from their flight from Paris yet. Even a small suitcase was more than she'd been able to take with her on the train from Poland, though – and this time she was visibly pregnant. She had become Mme Mercier at the earliest opportunity that Jean-Francois could arrange it, but Anna thought that they had conceived the baby somewhere on the journey to Paris with the Polish bullion. They had got the gold safely to Paris – and now the Germans were in Paris, and who knew what would happen to the gold, or to Poland?  
It was still possible to cross the Channel to England. De Gaulle had done it, only a week or so before, and now he was calling on all loyal Frenchmen to come to join him and continue the fight.  
Colonel and Mme Mercier were soon found accommodation by de Gaulle's people when they arrived in London – they were calling themselves the Free French now. Despite the bombing of the city, flats were still available. Jean-Francois joined de Gaulle's staff, while Anna prepared for the birth of her first child.

"I've found a girl," Anna said, one evening, as Jean-Francois was changing out of his uniform. Everyone who could wore their uniforms to work these days.  
"A girl? What for?"  
"To help with the baby. Her name's Juliette. She came to England as a refugee about the same time that we did." She pulled Jean-Francois down onto the sofa beside her and put her arm around him. "I've been talking to some friends from the League," she went on. "When the baby's born, I want to go back to work for them."  
He stared at her, surprised. "But – you're married now."  
"So I'm to sit at home when I could help?" she asked. "Jean-Francois, the League may not be able to do much right now, but it can still do something. I can do something. I have experience, and I can be useful."  
Jean-Francois shrugged. He recognised a battle he could not win. "When can I meet this girl you want to entrust my heir to?" he asked.  
"She can come round tomorrow evening. If you like her, she can start at once."

Jean-Francois couldn't remember the last time he had attended Mass, but it felt important to do things as properly as he could for his baby son. It was a pity that his sister Gabrielle couldn't be there, but at least she had been safe the last time he had heard from her. There had been no word from Anna's mother.  
There was a French Catholic church just off Leicester Square, Notre Dame de France, which seemed the ideal location for the baptism.  
The church was circular, which was a surprise, but apart from the pews being laid out across the circular nave, the altar was at one end, as it should be, and the font at the other. He was pleased to see a good number of his colleagues in de Gaulle's staff in attendance, some of them with their wives, and there were a few people he didn't recognise, who he assumed to be Anna's friends from the League of Nations.  
Anna looked radiant. The baby was well behaved, in a borrowed baptismal gown, and the whole thing went off very successfully.   
It was one of the last baptisms to be held in the church. In November, two bombs fell on it during an air raid, and made it unusable for the rest of the war.

"I have to go to Brazzaville," Jean-Francois said, one evening after little Jean-Francois had been put to bed. Juliette was proving worth her weight in gold at keeping the toddler active and amused while his parents were busy.  
Anna nodded slowly. The Free French were active across Africa and in Indo-China, as well as in Europe. Travelling to Brazzaville would at least be safer than a mission in France, and she had known that Jean-Francois wouldn't be able to stay in an office for the whole of the war.  
"They want me to debrief a Vichy police Captain who's just come out of Casablanca," he said. "He turned up out of the blue with an American civilian. He should have a lot of useful intelligence for us."

When Jean-Francois came back from Brazzaville, Anna was preparing to go to Tehran. "The League are going to be part of a conference there," she said. "Churchill will be there, meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt, and we will be discussing what can replace the League, since it so obviously failed to keep the peace in Europe."  
"Something with more teeth, perhaps," Jean-Francois suggested. "If you'd had military support, maybe Hitler would have taken more notice of you."  
"All those diplomatic dinners, all that talking we did .... It always seems to come down to military might in the end, doesn't it?" Anna sighed. Then she smiled. "Still, you did look very fine in your dress uniform."

"Was there really an assassination plot?" Jean-Francois asked, when she got back.  
"If there was, it failed," Anna said. "I was quite safe, honestly – I didn't see a German all the time I was there. But it's true that Roosevelt was moved out of the American Delegation building and into the Soviet Embassy for safety."

Then Jean-Francois was busier than ever. Firstly the L'Armee d'Afrique had to be merged with the Free French Forces to form the French Liberation Army, and then there was the planning for Operation Overlord. Jean-Francois was not in the first wave of troops to land in Normandy or in the South of France, but he left London very soon after that with de Gaulle, and he was there with General Leclerc when the 2nd Armoured Division, supported by US infantry, entered Paris and took the German surrender.  
"Very soon," Anna told little Jean-Francois, "you'll be able to see Paris. And your father has an estate in Alsace – you'll love it there, all the woods to play in, and your father had dogs. Would you like a dog of your own?"  
Little Jean-Francois nodded decisively. "Will Juliette come, too?" he asked.  
"You'll be getting too big to need Juliette soon," Anna said, "but, yes. Juliette will come too."

Anna had managed to obtain seats on an Avro York, along with a group of other high-ranking French civilians. They had been able to fly all the way to an airfield on the edge of Paris.   
"You must remember that Papa will still be very busy," Anna said, as the aircraft taxied to a halt. "The Germans are still fighting, away from Paris, but we will defeat them soon."  
"Vive la France!" little Jean-Francois said, stepping onto the soil of his homeland for the first time in his life.


End file.
